


Frederick Chilton/Francis Dolarhyde Psycho AU

by RosemarysBabysitter (TashaElizabeth)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Psycho AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-09 22:30:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3266738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TashaElizabeth/pseuds/RosemarysBabysitter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt received on tumblr "Psycho AU: Chilton is on the run when he stops at Dolarhyde Motel."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frederick Chilton/Francis Dolarhyde Psycho AU

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnnieVH](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnieVH/gifts).



The Dragon can smell runners. He can identify them by this smell and by the twitching of their eyes when they are being silent. The man in the plaid jacket was a runner. He came out of the rain in a little red car and he asked for a room for the night, but he was a runner. He would not stay. He glanced behind himself all the way up the center staircase. Francis carried his bag, put the key in his sweaty hand and then, very quietly, invited him to dinner.

“Not complicated, the food.” Francis mumbled. “We’ll eat in an hour.”

“Yes,” the man said. “Yes. Fine.” He wasn’t paying attention to Francis. He was digging in his bag, settling his belongings. Francis stood for too long in the hallway staring and then when the man looked up he turned away, halfway up the stairs before the door closed. Francis went up to his bedroom and lay down on his single bed. The Dragon was nearby. The man was handsome. He hadn’t flinched when Francis spoke. The Dragon snorted at the smell of his sweat.  
-  
Frederick put the gun in the bedside table. He took of his jacket and the sweatshirt underneath. He went into the bathroom, turned on the shower and, sneering at the low water pressure, turned it off again. He could still smell Will’s dogs in his clothes. There was a knot churning in the pit of his stomach. He took a deep breath. The Dolarhyde Inn was far enough off the highway that he put aside the matter of the car. It would have to be traded soon for something less conspicuous.

There was panic in his throat itching to come out. Frederick sat down on the bed and the springs screeched. He wanted his phone, now at the bottom of Chesapeake Bay. He wanted to look up the evening update on tattlecrime. He wanted to do something, anything, to occupy his mind for a few brief moments. 

At six, Frederick came downstairs in a black t-shirt tight around his arms. The table was not yet laid and the innkeeper, shy and fidgeting, was intent on the placement of forks and spoons. Frederick turned to examine the clock in the hall. It was a large bodied piece with intricate mechanism but entirely too old fashioned for his taste. In his periphery Frederick saw the other man approach, steady himself with a deep breath and the blurt out, “I’ve put out the dinner.”:

“Yes, of course.”

Everything served looked like it had come from a can including the gritty iced tea in the cups and pitcher. Frederick took double rolls and some of the pasta. They both tasted like bleached flour and margarine, a taste he associated strongly with his childhood. It did not help his anxiety.

“Is it just us?” They were seated across from each other at the far end of a long, once grand dining table. The head seat was in place but unoccupied. There were no other dishes in the sideboard but one could see the outlines where decorative platters and ornate soup tureens had blocked the sunlight for years and years.

“You’re our only occupant tonight.” The man spoke hesitantly, Frederick notice, with odd turns of phrase and a pause at the end of his sentence as though he wanted to say Frederick’s name but couldn’t. Frederick found he himself suddenly couldn’t remember the name he had checked in under. Had it been Garcia or Rodriguez?

“Please,” Frederick said awkwardly, ‘“call me Frederick. And you’re Frank or Frankie?”

“No.” the man said.

There was a moment as Frederick waited for him elaborate. He did not. “Then just Francis?”

“Uh huh.”

“Francis. Before, I meant...well, you mentioned your grandmother.”

Francis nodded to himself. “I’ll bring my her up a plate in a little while. Bedridden, but healthy. We’re very lucky.”

In the quiet of the house there was not the slightest noise to indicate that another living person existed for twenty miles. “I see,” Frederick said. 

Francis chuckled, very softly, at a private joke.

They sat for a while in silence. Francis offered him the beef and Frederick waved it away, trying to explain his rudeness without ever using the dreaded word ‘vegetarian.’ The dish would not likely have intrigued him even if he’d been able to eat it. Francis devoured his meal and then lingered over seconds either through politeness or an unlikely personal pleasure at Frederick’s meager company.

Frederick ate little and said less. 

The meal ended too soon. The serving dishes were mostly untouched. Frederick rose, offered to help with the dishes and was refused. The emptiness of his room upstairs weighed down on him, suddenly oppressive. He lingered in the hallway. Francis went in and out of the dining room to the kitchen, thumping doors open and closed, putting things away. When he came out at last he caught Frederick loitering again by the large clock.

There was a moment of awkward pausing, aborted movements from both of them back and forth toward the stairs. Francis broke the tension. 

“Would you like a drink?” He asked and swallowed before saying, more firmly this time, “Would you like to have a drink with me?”

Frederick laughed. “I would love a drink.”  
-

They sat in den with a record playing for what felt like a long while. They drank beer from glass bottles and as the tensions lessened, they sat together too closely on the battered sofa. While Frederick spoke, Francis could feel the heat of his side next to him. They spoke about their lives in abstractions. Halfway down the bottle, Frederick came to a point.

“I mean its terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. But its also amazing. There isn’t a word for that feeling you get after something truly horrific happens to you. The sense of freedom it creates in the space where the goodness in your life was. Like you can become someone else entirely.”

YES the Dragon said reaching out and touching Frederick’s wrist, shocked by the hot feel of his skin. “Uh huh,” Francis said and let his hand fall into Frederick’s, palm to palm on the sofa cushion. There was a moment of elation and then Francis began to pull away instinctively, leaning over to the other end. 

“No,” Frederick said, refusing to release his hand. “You’re not wrong. Most people don’t notice.”

“You probably don't…” 

“What?”

“I…” Francis’s spoke in a whisper, then opened his mouth to find no words came out. His voice vanished behind his teeth.

“Is it the...I mean, let’s get it out in the open, the palate reconstruction? I know what it is. I’m not put off by it.” Frederick sounded sure and competent, almost bored with the information. Francis could tell it was an insincere tone even without the Dragon’s whispers. It poorly masked anxiety, poorly misdirected from Frederick’s own fear which emanated off him in waves. He still had Francis’s hand, was pulling him towards the center of the sofa, was talking to him in an even tone. “It’s okay,” Frederick said. “You should see the scars on me.” Francis didn’t say anything. Frederick lowered his head to meet Francis’s eyes and drew his gaze up from its fix on the floor. “Do you want to? Do you want to see?”

YES the Dragon said and then Frederick was in his lap, kissing and heavy and sweet. His skin was so hot and and he seemed to fill the air with wet gasps and the scuffle of hands on bodies.

Francis knew he did not look strong but Frederick showed no surprise when Francis picked him up and made him walk, blind with want, into one of the dark guest rooms on the first floor. Francis pulled at his shirt and unable to negotiate it off Frederick’s shoulders without releasing his tongue, pulled at the fabric and tore it raggedly at the neck.

“Oh,” Frederick said but made no moves to stop him. He did have a scar, a huge smooth one running down his stomach,warping the shape of his navel. Francis traced the scope of it with the palm of his hand before pushing him unto the bed. 

Frederick submitted. He did not speak again even when Francis put his mouth to Frederick’s neck and chest and began to bite, blooming bruises on Frederick’s hot, twitching skin. He didn't speak again until much later, legs thrown over Francis’s shoulder, scarred stomach writhing with exertion and then he only said “yes, yes, yes,” to question Francis didn’t know he was asking and wouldn’t have been able to speak if he did.  
-  
Frederick woke from a light doze in the unfamiliar bed. It was later and the tone of light had changed. The shadows were now hyper-elongated, the outlines of things made grotesque. He shifted, feeling uncomfortable and sticky, and glanced over at Francis, getting out the bed on the other side.

“Oh my god,” he said without thinking.

Francis stopped, flinched.

Frederick tried to find words and instead began to ramble. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t notice it before. I feel so stupid, you know, not noticing something so huge but I guess I was distracted or something.” He put his hand on Francis’s shoulder blade, on the wing joint of the Dragon which was tattooed there. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yes,” Francis said, very clearly, very firmly. “And you’ve noticed it now. Without distraction. You see. Would you like to take a shower with me?”

Frederick smiled at him and then they went into the bathroom together.

The water was good. It was clean. It continued to beat down through the grunting and the screaming. It drowned out the last ragged sounds of his breathing and it washed all the blood down the black eye of the drain. In the steam of the shower Frederick did not see the knife coming. He didn’t see the opening of his skin under his ribs, the wound striving upward and sticking into bone. Francis kept it from him until he fell down under the shower spray, limp and unmoving at his Francis’s feet. Kept it from him until his eyes went blank and he did not see. He was grateful. The Dragon gave them that.


End file.
